My friend Caroline Gilfillan, who has died aged 71, was a multitalented musician, novelist and poet with a vibrant and adventurous spirit.
Her poems won awards, including a Yeovil literary prize in 2019. She published four collections, including Pepys in 2012 and Yes in 2010, which won best poetry book in the East Anglian book awards that year.
In the mid-1970s, living in east London, Caroline and four friends co-founded the trailblazing all-female band the Stepney Sisters, writing and performing original songs that tackled feminist struggles and sexism. They also supported local Bangladeshi families. In later life, Caroline volunteered in India, travelling each winter from 2016 to 2019 to teach children at a school in Kochi, Kerala.
The Stepney Sisters stayed together for 18 months, playing 50 gigs and appearing on the cover of Spare Rib magazine. Caroline continued to write songs and perform with musicians throughout her life, in the different places she lived; she formed the a cappella group Crikey Aphrodite in Lancaster, and the bands Calamity in Norfolk and the Ponytails and High Jinx in London.
Born in Worthing, West Sussex, she was the daughter of Marjorie (nee Stephens) and Robert Gilfillan, an engineer. After leaving Worthing grammar school for girls she spent a period in Paris as an au pair. She studied English at York University and then moved to London, where she took publishing and teaching jobs to support herself while performing in bands and writing.
In her 40s, by then working in NHS administration, she left her well-paid job and moved to Lancaster, and took an MA in creative writing at Lancaster University. In 2004 she moved to Fakenham in Norfolk, where she and I met. She taught at the University of East Anglia and for the Open University, and ran her own creative writing workshops.
Her poems were included in many anthologies, and she was a winner of a Channel 4 writing competition with The Colonel, a 15-minute drama about torture in Chile in the 70s.
In 2018 she established her own publishing company, Cowslip Press, publishing two crime novels set in north Norfolk. Her most recent publication, a poetry collection in collaboration with the photographer Andrew Scott entitled Hail Sisters of the Revolution (2022), celebrates her early experiences with the Stepney Sisters (“beer swillers, women’s libbers/bolshie Sheilas”). The book captures the spirit of east London in the 70s and was recommended by the Poetry Society as a book of the year in 2022.
Diagnosed with cancer in 2020, Caroline faced her illness courageously. She loved nature and focused on gratitude and positivity. She continued to run, and to participate in creative writing workshops and readings, enjoying this year’s Edinburgh festival.
She is survived by her brother, Christian, her nephew Etienne, her niece Alex and great-nieces Raphaelle and Elise.
